Warriors Don’t Cry

Melba Patillo Beals

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols

Key Facts

1. “God’s warriors don’t cry.”

Grandma India says this to Melba in Chapter 6 after Melba cries in
front of her. Melba is crying because her family, fearing that she will be
the target of an attack, has forbidden her from attending a wrestling match.
But Melba had planned to meet Vince, the boy she has a crush on, at the
wrestling match. When her grandmother tells her she can’t come to the
matches, Melba feels like every part of her life has been taken away from
her. Grandma India lets Melba cry for a bit and then tells her she can never
cry again. Grandma India explains to Melba, for the first time, that what
she is doing is greater than just going to high school for a year. Melba is
fighting a battle, and the battle is for the future of black people in the
United States. She is fighting God’s war. Grandma India sounds cruel when
she tells Melba to stop crying, but her point is that Melba has to learn to
accept pain. If Melba is going to have any chance of surviving her year at
Central, she is going to have to learn how to be tougher than the average
teenager.

This quotation also reflects the war that is being waged all across
the country, not just at Central High School. Melba and similar individuals
are soldiers at the front of a very dangerous battle. Yet in spite of these
dangers, Melba and the other black students at Little Rock persist. The
struggle entails more than one person’s desire to go to a better high school
or eat at a better diner or ride in the front of the bus. Melba’s struggle
is a quest to improve the lives of black people all over the country.
Melba’s participation in this quest is why her grandmother calls her one of
God’s warriors.

2. “One nigger down, eight to go.”

This is the chant recited by the segregationists at Central High
School after a handful of them managed to drive Minnijean out in Chapter 23.
The Little Rock Nine have been warned time and time again not to retaliate.
A few students push Minnijean too far one day, and she dumps soup on them.
She is suspended, and when she returns to school, she becomes a target for
all of the fury of the segregationist students. They have learned that they
can provoke her, and they do. Minnijean eventually fights back again, and
she is expelled. Overjoyed at their success, the segregationists begin
taunting the other black students with this chant. For the segregationists,
it is proof that they can get rid of the black students. To the remaining
members of the Little Rock Nine, it is a reminder of how strong they have to
be and how harsh the consequences will be if they falter.

3. “Please, God, let me learn how to stop being a warrior. Sometimes
I just need to be a girl.”

Melba writes this in her diary on her sixteenth birthday, in Chapter
20. All her life, Melba has dreamt of her “sweet sixteen,” imagining it down
to the last detail. Her real sixteenth birthday, however, turns out to be
very different from her daydreams. Though she has planned a party with all
of her friends from her old high school, only Vince shows up. Everyone else
has decided not to come because they are too afraid to be seen with Melba.
They all go to another party, and they don’t want Melba to come because they
want to have a good, safe evening. Eventually, even Vince leaves for the
other party, and Melba cries herself to sleep.

This party is Melba’s last effort to prove that the fight at Central
High School is not her whole life. She tries to surround herself with
friends who know nothing about the battle for integration. When Melba writes
that she sometimes needs to just be a girl, she is trying desperately to
cling to the innocence that’s been slipping away throughout the year. Sadly,
her dream of a sweet sixteen is crushed. When nobody shows up, Melba is
forced to confront the fact that she has changed. Having accepted the role
of a warrior for integration, Melba finds that she can’t put it aside so
easily. She learns that being a warrior means more than just venturing into
new and hostile territory. It also means leaving behind old pleasures and
friends. It means that she can no longer indulge in just being a
girl.

4. “Change the rules of the game, girl, and they might not like it so
much.”
“They’d think I was crazy.”
“They’d think you were no longer their victim.”

In Chapter 23, this exchange between Melba and her grandmother comes
after Minnijean has been attacked in school and suspended for the second
time. Attacks on the other black students have been stepped up as well, and
Melba and her grandmother have this conversation while attempting to remove
spoiled eggs from her hair and dress—eggs that were thrown on Melba by a
segregationist. Throughout Melba’s time at Central, her grandmother has
advised her to follow the teachings of Jesus and to draw her strength from
the Bible and God. Here, she advises Melba to model her behavior in school
after Mahatma Gandhi’s methods in India. Gandhi practiced a form of protest
called “passive resistance,” in which protestors were strictly nonviolent
and preached peace and love instead of violence and anger. Melba’s
grandmother is advising Melba to approach her attackers with love and
kindness as a way of empowering herself.

Grandma India tells Melba to thank the segregationists when they
attack and to smile sweetly, as though they’ve done something kind. She
tells Melba that the segregationists at school have no power over Melba
other than the power that Melba gives them. And the power she gives them
consists of reacting the way they want her to react. If Melba isn’t affected
(or at least pretends to be unaffected) by their taunts and cruelty, then
they have no power over her. Because Melba acts a representative of millions
of other people, she has to change the power dynamic between her and her
oppressors. The segregationists hope to teach her that they can control her,
but Melba defies this. By refusing to be a victim, Melba shows
segregationists that they do not, in fact, have such power over
her.

5. “Namasté” (The God in me sees and honors the God
in you).

Melba ends her book with this quotation, a Sanskrit prayer of
acceptance and peace in Chapter 28. Namasté literally
means, “I bow to you.” A form of greeting in India, it supposes that there
is a divine spark (or God) in every human being. When a person bows with his
hands in a prayer position at his heart, he recognizes that the divine spark
within him is also in every other person around him. Because Melba has lived
through so much anger and hatred, the prayer with which she closes her story
of struggle and hatred is a profoundly respectful one. It is a message to
her readers that, more than anything else, she’s learned that all people
have divinity in them, regardless of their color. By extending this gesture
of peace and acceptance to her readers, she extends her message to the
world.

For Melba, this prayer is a means of understanding the trauma of her
year at Central High School. She is no longer a girl who simply wants people
to like her. She has become an adult, toughened by life and her experiences
at Central but also able to forgive the world for its cruelty towards her.
Because of her time at Central, Melba knows the significance of her closing
prayer. Until people learn to recognize both human and divine attributes in
themselves and others, peace will be impossible. The prayer is not just for
forgiveness; it is also Melba’s hope for the world.